Resist the Collectivist View of History

After reading Anna Morgenstern’s Memorial Day: Remembering the Dead, I was struck by a common (though understandable) error that even the most ardent anarchists and voluntaryists make. Though Anna’s description and analysis of war gangsterism is dead on accurate, I find her views on the (misnamed) Civil War and WWII surprisingly statist.

I’ve come to believe that it is useful to not only analyze present day events from the point of view of a free born, sovereign, stateless, anti-collectivist individual, but also to scrutinize historical events from that same viewpoint.

Anna presents the case that the above mentioned wars may be two rare examples where US state-approved wars were justified as “fighting for its citizen’s freedom.” First off, I find it laughable that any state, an organization that maintains its power by physically and financially enslaving its subjects, can legitimately claim the moral stand of freeing anyone.